Keetoowah Society

The Keetoowah Nighthawk Society was a Cherokee Native American political organization that was founded in 1859 to resist the United States government's transfer of Cherokee lands in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) to private owners. The society had 5,500 members, but it was unable to stop the "allotment" of its lands, and the government fought against the society with "forced commitments", enrolling non-compliant society members for allotments without their knowledge and stripping their lands from them. Its leader Redbird Smith's death in 1918 was a blow to the society, but it would later be recreated in Oklahoma by the Cherokee tribe.